In Which Tate Intervenes
by EstellaB
Summary: ...and Eustace is something of a perplexed hero. The Pevensies are not the only ones who have nightmares, as Sarah Tate discovers. However, she is determined to do something about it. Rated for angst.


**Disclaimer:...yep, I just checked. I'm still not C.S. Lewis, tragedy though it is. **

**Summary: The Pevensies are not the only ones who have nightmares.**

* * *

"Pole? Pole!" Tate walked briskly over to her friend's bed, and tried to push a hand down on the occupant's shoulder. No such luck. Pole was thrashing furiously in her sleep, sweaty and twisted up in her blankets, and clearly terrified in her dream. "Oh, snap out of it, Pole!" Not only was she distressed on her friend's part, but her own sorely-needed sleep had been interrupted; this was not the first time that Jill had been visited by a night terror. She was about to grab Pole's hand, when the other girl got there first.

Tate spluttered as Pole sat bolt upright, wild-eyed, and gripped the former's wrist, vice-like. "Did you fall?" The horror in Pole's voice was palpable. Her nails were digging into the skin on Tate's wrist, and she tried to wrench her arm free. "Did you fall?" There was urgency in Pole's tone now, and then, to Tate's dismay, a tear escaped and soaked into the blankets. "_Did you fall_?" There was a hitch in her voice, and Tate rushed to reassure her.

"No, of course not, Pole darling. Everybody's all right; nobody fell." Pole relaxed, exhaling deeply. Tate tugged her arm free, to her great relief, and began to massage feeling back into it with the uninjured wrist. As she was making her way back towards her own bunk, she heard Pole murmur something.

"He fell." Now there wasn't one tear, there was a veritable flood. Pole settled back against her pillows, and turned a wet face away from her friend. "He fell, he fell, he fell."

* * *

"Scrubb!"

Eustace Clarence Scrubb was _not _used to being accosted by girls directly outside his dorm. Not unless they were Pole, and even she tended to be a bit less abrupt about it. Tate caught hold of his elbow as he came out of the door. "Hello, Tate," he greeted her wearily.

She poked him in the chest with a very determined finger. "We need to talk about something," she announced.

"Not now, Tate, I-"

"That wasn't a question." Scrubb was stronger than Tate, but he allowed himself to be dragged outside. They made their way to behind the Gym; Scrub felt uncomfortable about this. Behind the Gym was where couples normally went for secret trysts these days (now that, according to the new school rules, they had to be secret). When he voiced this, Tate rolled her eyes. "I'm serious!" she insisted.

"First time for everything," he muttered under his breath.

"Pole is upset about something!" She rolled her eyes at his tone; she and Scrubb had never been great friends.

"What?" His concern was immediately apparent to Tate, and, despite the gravity of the situation, she smirked.

"I don't know, exactly." Taking her coat off, she spread it on the ground, and sat down, a thoughtful expression on her face. "What happened to make you and Pole friends, Scrubb? It must have been something cataclysmic, for you used to despise each other." Scrubb and Pole had always argued, almost as frequently as they did now, but now laughter and fondness were intermingled with cutting comments and quick retorts; it had not always been this way.

"I don't see how this is-"

"It's relevant. Please answer."

There was a long pause. "I don't... you wouldn't believe me if I tried," he concluded in the end. His tone was, surprisingly, sincere.

"I'd say _try me, _but I've had this conversation with Pole and she won't tell me either. But I remember... you know, you two disappearing for the afternoon, and then all that hullaballoo with the lions and circus clowns and murderers, or whatever really happened. You had something to do with that, both of you." That afternoon had changed the whole school for the better, Tate reflected. It had changed Scrubb and Pole, as well, almost as dramatically. It was unthinkable not to put the two things together in her mind.

"Your point?" Eustace was late for an archery class, and he hated being late for anything; besides which, if anybody happened upon them behind the Gym...

"Pole's been having dreams." She wasn't sure whether she was betraying her friend, but _something _had to be done, and Tate certainly wasn't the one to be doing it. "Nightmares. She's had them as long as we've been dorm mates, but they've got worse recently."

An extremely distressed expression flickered across Scrubb's face. Absently, Tate noticed that he had a very angry welt on his left cheek. "How do you... that is... why are you telling me?"

"She had another one. They're almost every night now. Haven't you noticed how tired she's getting?"

Scrubb had. His friend had put her pale face and increasing irritability down to the approaching exam season. He felt very queer, imagining her meeting giants and serpents and all sorts in her dreams. How was he supposed to protect her from something that came at her in her sleep? "What sort of... do you know what they're about?" This was _dreadful. _This was discussing his best friend behind her back, something that he knew she would hate.

"No," Tate said bluntly. The exact nature of Pole's dreams was a mystery to her. But... but... "_Did you fall?" _she asked Scrubb, suddenly grabbing his wrist and squeezing it tightly. "She asked me that last night, when I tried to wake her up. And then..." well, there was _no way _that she was telling Scrubb about Pole's tears. "...then she went back to sleep."

Scrubb stared off into the middle distance, remembering their first day in Narnia; they'd argued before they'd even got there, and then there'd been the cliff and he'd blamed her for everything.

"_Do something_," Tate ordered. "I need to start getting a decent night's sleep, although I suppose that's immaterial to you; Pole needs some sort of help. And whatever it is that you do, _don't _say that I told you anything about it. Oh, and however you got that bruise on your cheek, you need to see Matron. It looks nasty." She reached up and poked it gently. Scrubb shrank away, complaining volubly. "It _is _nasty," she remarked with interest and a little sympathy. "Have a good day, won't you?"

* * *

Eustace looked for his opportunity every day for the next week. Odd that he and Jill could spend every waking minute with each other, and he could know her better than he knew anybody else under the sun-and yes, that did include Edmund-and yet every time he tried to broach the subject, his throat would dry up and his palms would sweat and he would talk about Maths prep. Tate had started shooting him vigorous glares over the table in the dining hall; apparently, her sleep wasn't getting any healthier, meaning that Jill's wasn't either. He was worried about her; he'd had a few Narnian nightmares of his own, and he knew they were nothing to trifle with.

But of all the things, oh, of _all _the things they'd faced in Narnia, why the cliff? She'd seemed much more scared of that horrible dark hole in the ground, and giants had wanted to eat them-he suddenly felt warm all the way down to his toes. Was she dreaming about _him?_ Was that why it was so-

He cut his thought off, deciding it was ridiculous. Jill's first impression of Narnia had been that of the cliff, of her first meeting with Aslan. It only made sense that it would have stuck vividly in her mind. Whatever the case, he needed to talk to her soon, before her health really started suffering. It was over a hot cup of tea and an unusually frank letter from Edmund that he began to concoct his fiendish plan.

They were leaving a Maths lessons two days later. It was raining heavily, but there was still a miserable inch or two of snow underfoot, compacted down and becoming ice. Most people were curled up in their dorms, but Pole and Scrubb were heading for the library. Suddenly, Eustace suggested that they went into town for a cup of tea. Jill stared at him. "Scrubb!" she objected. "This weather is unbearable. I can scarcely walk without falling on my face."

"It's just that, well, I had a letter from Edmund, and I wanted to talk to you about _There_. Not in the library."

Jill understood instantly; they had talked about Narnia rather too publicly for the first year or so after their adventure, and it hadn't been until Tate told them (gently) that there were all sorts of rumours going around, that they'd decided to confine Narnia to their favourite tearoom. Still, she had no intention of walking there when, with every step, she took her life into her hands; she opened her mouth to say so, when the expression on Eustace's face stopped her. Whatever this letter was about, it was obviously very important to him. She sighed, and told him to make it quick because she was cold.

As they settled down in the comfy chairs at the back of _Willow Tea Rooms, _Jill was nursing a bruised wrist and an injured ego, and glaring at Eustace. It was an inauspicious beginning. He coughed, pulled out his letter from Edmund, and set it on the table. He didn't intend to talk about it for very long, but it was a useful formality. Taking a sip of his tea, he cleared his throat. Jill laughed. "I feel like you're about to announce you're standing as an MP," she said. "Do get on with it, Scrubb."

He found it very hard to be cross with Jill when she was happy. "Ed sent me a picture that Lucy drew of Reepicheep in his coracle. He thought that it might be nice to have a reminder; Reep was my friend, you know."

"What happened to him again?" Jill had heard the story umpteen times, but it was different looking at Lucy's sketch and being able to picture the Mouse in question. Eustace did not have a particular gift when it came to description.

Eustace explained about the sweet, fresh water, the East; his voice cracked once or twice. He missed his old friend more than he had expected to. That part wasn't acting at all. "I miss him," he concluded simply.

"I'm sorry, Scrubb," Jill said instantly, feeling guilty that she had made such a fuss about coming. If Eustace had something that he wanted to get off his chest about Narnia-why, then, she was more than willing to listen.

He shrugged. "I don't regret going."

It was a funny choice of words. "How could anyone regret going to Narnia?" If Eustace hadn't gone to Narnia the first time, they wouldn't have gone together the second time. They wouldn't have met Aslan, and he would still have been a priggish coward, and she an argumentative crybaby; they would never have been friends and it didn't bear thinking about.

"Sometimes I almost wish that... that certain bits hadn't happened. I wish that I hadn't strayed away from the others on Dragon Island, because it was so awful to be a dragon."

"But being a dragon sorted you out!" Jill interrupted him.

"I know, but as much as I needed it-it was awful, you know." He paused. "Or I have dreams where the giants really do eat us, or you and Puddleglum at least, and then I'm left..." he trailed off. He hadn't had a nightmare in months now, but if Jill was having them every night, it meant that something was Up. "You have no idea how horrible it is," he finished, "because most of the time, in the dreams, it's my fault. I'm responsible for the fact that the two of you have... _died._" His voice was filled with genuine guilt.

Jill realised that she was privy to a very rare display of emotion on Eustace's part; she felt as though she ought to do or say something. "At least you never _actually _nearly killed someone," she mumbled, looking at the table. "If Aslan hadn't been there on that cliff, you would have died and it would have down to me, Eustace."

"Jill."

Startled by his tone, she looked up. "Are you going to say that it's all right?" she asked sarcastically. It was far easier than sounding touched and confused and completely guilt-ridden.

"That wasn't the only nightmare I had about Narnia." He reached across the table and grabbed her hand; Jill knew that this was an important moment and a difficult display of emotion for him, so she tried not to mind that he was nearly breaking her hand. At least she didn't complain. "I had a dream when it was you that went over the cliff instead of me, Jill; you know, surely you know, that I'm glad it happened the way it did instead of..." he coughed. "Any _alternative_."

Jill's eyes widened at the implication. He would _rather_ that hewent over the cliff? Suddenly, Eustace's hand seemed very warm around hers, and she felt ten kinds of peculiar.

And then Eustace spoiled it completely. "Anyway, you needed that meeting with Aslan to stop you being so... _you _know."

"Well, I like that!" Jill huffed, snatching her hand away and forgetting that she had said almost the same thing to him a few seconds ago. Eustace could have kicked himself.

"Sorry, Jill." Apparently he wasn't willing to drop the sober subject matter quite yet. "But just... please don't feel guilty any more. Please, Jill."

Jill wanted to look at the floor and mutter something dry and cynical, but she found that she couldn't, quite. Not when Eustace's voice was quite like _that_, and when he looked at her just _so. _Instead, she leant across the table, and touched his cheek. Eustace was completely confounded (and _not pleased at all_), until he realised that her fingers had found the aging bruise sprawled across his face. "I'm sorry, Eustace. I do always seem to hurt you."

Eustace's poor, overworked mind whirred into action (which would have been _much easier _if she would only stop touching his face), and he almost laughed at the memory. Honestly. Was _that _what this was all about?

He and Jill were lab partners in Chemistry. It was one of Eustace's favourite subjects, and, though Jill was quite good at it, she hated it with a deep and abiding passion. About two weeks ago, she had forgotten to add anti-bumping granules to their solution, and, when he had gone and heated it up, of course the bung had shot off and nearly taken his eye out. It was Eustace's turn to feel guilty. He hadn't been very forgiving on that occasion. Had it really been sufficient to trigger this reaction in his friend? How peculiar. "Honestly, Pole. It hardly hurts anymore." _Except when you're touching it. _Oh well. He would be more careful with his casual accusations of almost-murder in future. "I forgive you," he said, lightly, trying to make it mean far more than a stupid chemistry accident.

Apparently she understood, and pulled her hand away quickly. "Thanks," she said earnestly.

Eustace was fighting an enormous, perplexed grin the whole way back to school. If he lived to be a hundred, he would never understand girls. Or Jill, at least.

* * *

Tate shifted, satisfied, in her bed. Her room was quiet; there had been no cries of horror that night. _Good old Scrubb, _she thought cheerfully. He had found and fixed the root of the problem. "I've still got no idea why you two are friends," she whispered to the (gently snoring) Pole. "But why ever it is, I'm glad you are."

* * *

**So... a bit corny, I'm afraid (but my first Eustace/Jill in ages, so hopefully I can be forgiven?). I was struck with the number of Peter! or Edmund!nightmare fics-even Cor and Aravis have some. But Eustace and Jill, arguably, see more terrifying things than the Pevensies, with less visible support from Aslan. Am thinking of turning this into a "Nightmare" hurt/comfort series with Polly or Digory, and maybe some other character. Maybe Rilian. Hope you enjoyed! Please give constructive criticism!**


End file.
